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Clementine didn't stay with Elliot and his friends once they'd reached the infirmary. Not only did being in there remind him of what he'd seen the night Molly had died, but he had something much more important to do.

          In his room, he pulled out a trunk from beneath his bed and opened it. There wasn't much inside—after all, he never really owned many things other than the clothes he'd worn every day. He rummaged through the spare shirts, the extra blazer, and past the books that lay within. Once he located a mortar and pestle, he slammed the trunk shut and sat cross-legged on his bed.

          He took the small mushroom from his pocket and placed it into the mortar. Then, just as he'd seen his sister do, he started crushing the fungus with the pestle. At first, the mushroom fought against the pressure of his motions, but after a few more grinds, it cracked, and its texture became something quite like jelly.

          The smell was atrocious—like a decaying corpse in a room of old, mouldy cheese and rotting fruits on a humid summer day. Clementine gagged, wishing he had more than two hands so that he could cover his mouth and nose. But he pushed through, grinding the fungus down until it was a strange mushy mixture of putrid grey.

          For a moment, he stared at the mixture. Anette would challenge him to see who could down theirs first—she always won. It tasted much worse than it smelt, and Clementine wasn't as wilful as his sister had been when it came to foul smells and putrid tastes. But he'd learnt a little trick. He pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and took out a small box of spiced crackers. He checked the date, and luckily, they weren't yet stale. Then, he took two of the palm-sized crackers out, poured the mushroom mix onto one, and placed the other over the top, creating something of a mushroom-cracker sandwich. He placed the mortar and pestle on his nightstand, leaned back against his bed's headboard, and took a bite out of the crackers.

          He grimaced in revolt as it crushed and sloshed around inside his mouth, but it could be worse. The rosemary crackers were muting just enough of the foul cheesy-rotten fruit taste for him to quickly gobble the entire thing down, and once he was done, he snatched the glass of water he'd earlier prepared and started gulping it so fast that it spilled down his chin.

          It was over—for now.

          With a sigh of relief, he laid back in his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to spend the day in bed while he waited for the ceraroot to relieve all his symptoms of deterioration, but he needed to get to class. If he missed it, he was sure that would arouse suspicion. Not only that, but if people suspected he was alone in his room, they might come searching for him looking for an easy kill. Of course, he knew he wasn't an easy target, but he didn't want to have to spend the day defending himself when he'd already spent his morning fleeing a beast out in the murky forests.

          He dragged his hand over his face. He should head to class—it was about that time.

          As his headache started to pass, he got up, cleaned away his things, and made his way to class.

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          "In the year zero, the world as we know it today was founded." Professor Warren eyed each student gazing at him. "Believe it or not, there was a time when our people would cower in the shadows—that was...until the gods said, 'No more will our beautiful creations hide and quiver in the shadow of humanity'," he bellowed proudly, holding up one hand. "And when His Mighty Lord Letholdus revealed himself to the world, a new age was born."

          The class responded with murmurs of, "Ave," and humble bows of their heads.

          Clementine mirrored their reply, despite his atheism. He wasn't a Lethidian—he didn't follow their customs or believe in their God.

          He'd heard so many different versions of the story Warren was telling—in some religions, it was the Goddess Lilith who first revealed herself to the world, thus beginning Year Zero. In others, it was Lord Lucifer, Angel Goddess Ephriel, or most uncommonly heard, the Daegelus. As for Clementine...he believed that Year Zero occurred when an unfortunate supernatural associated with the wrong people and revealed an entire other world to humanity. And that seemed to have become a pattern. After all, the cause of the war that had shattered and wounded the land he lived in had started because one careless seer revealed to his human wife that he could turn one thing into another with a simple wave of his hand. It was that war which had birthed the Ravenblood, the colligo-interitus disease, and many other unfortunate events which all led up to this: students killing each other for a chance at a life free of depravity and death.

          "Humanity has tried upon several occasions to take the world back—where some are content to live alongside us, others have resisted," Warren called, tapping a symbol drawn in chalk on the blackboard. A beautiful, swirled A entwined with a Z. "One historic example of those of us fighting the resistance are the Nosferatu. What began as a simple attempt to have humans live alongside cold bloods turned into a world-spread initiative to ensure all of our people would live safely and fairly.

          "The Zenith, a king of demons, conquered empires, religions, cults, and slew the tyrant Lilith, all to create a perfect world. It is the Zenith we have to thank for creating the New World, a place, I will remind you, only ten of you will get to see."

          A flurry of hands shot into the air.

          Professor Warren pointed to a black-haired girl. "Phoebe."

          "Does the Zenith live there?"

          "It is a fact that Zenith often visits the New World, but where he resides is unknown. Some think that, like the gods, the Zenith resides in the void space."

          The hands shot up again.

          Warren pointed to a boy this time. "Logan."

          "My father says one of our ancestors was a member of the Zenith's personal council," he said smugly. "Is that true?"

          "Ah, yes," Warren said, nodding. "The lineage of wolf walkers is a tricky one, Mr Gibbous Blood. The first wolf walker of our world was a woman, Queen Ada, created by the Aegis, Kardos. However, in the year nine-five-nine, a group of people travelled through the void from one world to another—to our world. That, my dear students, is where the Grey Blood line began. However, our lecture today is primarily about Year Zero and our peoples' struggles to live alongside the pest that is humanity. We will be covering lineage next week."

          No hands shot up this time.

          Clementine shuffled around in his seat, tapping his leg while he waited as patiently as possible for the class to end.

          "Could anybody tell me the name of an anti-ethos cult?" Warren called, looking around the class.

          Deep in his thoughts, Clementine pondered. He was still unsure what to do about Ian. He felt he should still try to grab the roster, which might tell him which students were Ravenblood. But knowing wouldn't do him any good if he couldn't get them alone to kill them—

          "Mr Darlington," Warren called. "How about you?"

          For a moment, Clementine stared at the professor...and when he found his voice, he shook his head. "No, sir."

          "Anyone else?" he asked, looking around at the students' blank faces. When no one raised their hand, he sighed and started pacing from side to side. "Surely your parents have informed you of the Holy Grail, especially those of you who have come here from the New World."

          The room was silent.

          Warren sighed and shook his head. "The Holy Grail was formed after the second world ethos war. That conflict killed millions, and a group of humans were foolish enough to stand up and say, 'no more!'. They formed this cult, repented Letholdus and the gods, and have made it their personal mission to try to destroy us!"

          A choir of whispers broke the tense silence.

          "Questions!" Warren demanded.

          As the class discussion about the Holy Grail began, Clementine sank deeper into his seat. When was it going to be over? He stared ahead, trying to make it look like he was paying attention, but his eyes glanced at the clock every so often.

          Thirty minutes....

          Twenty minutes....

          Clementine could feel a yawn scratching at his jaw. He did his best to hide it behind his hand, widened his heavy eyes, and started looking around the room to try and find something to keep himself awake. And as the class dragged on, he began asking himself what was a worse torture for him: his sickness...or this class?

          He was beginning to feel as though it was the latter.

⤚       ♠       ⤙

          During biology, Clementine had his desk to himself. Elliot was probably still with his friends, which gave him more space to think.

          While he worked on his notes as Professor Quincy spoke, he occasionally glanced over at Ian. He pondered over all the ways he could kill him: stab him, choke him, maybe even drown him—or...what if he poisoned him? He knew a thing or two about mushrooms—he had to for the sake of his condition. What if he found some death caps? He could grind them up and sneak them into Ian's food—hell, he could sneak them into the food of every Ravenblood once he knew who they were.

          No...they'd wise up to that eventually. But it could work for Ian—

          Just then, the classroom door opened.

          "Ah, Mr Davis, nice of you to join us," Quincy uttered, glaring at Elliot as he stepped into the room.

          "S-sorry sir, I was in the infirmary."

          "Did you choke on your cereal?" the professor asked.

          As the class laughed, Elliot pouted. "No, sir."

          "Then get to your seat. And I hope Mr Darlington and yourself haven't forgotten about your detention tomorrow...."

          Elliot shook his head. "N-no, sir." Then, he hurried down the centre of the class to join Clementine at their desk.

          "How's Stanley?" Clementine mumbled.

          "They stitched his arm up," Elliot mumbled, pulling his book out of his bag. "It's pretty deep, though, so they're keeping him in there for the rest of the day. We're going to go and see him at lunch."

          Clementine nodded, looking down at his book as he wrote into it.

          "Why didn't you come with us?"

          He rolled his eyes. "Because it's my fault we were even out there," he mumbled.

          "No one blames you," Elliot whispered.

          Shaking his head, Clementine glanced ahead, making sure Quincy wasn't watching them. The last thing he wanted was to have their detention lengthened because they'd been caught chattering again. "You don't know that."

          Elliot stared at him for a moment but then sighed and started writing. "Carmichael's still riled up. He's going after Frederick and his girls again—"

          "Are you serious?" Clementine uttered, a frown of disbelief on his face.

          "Yeah. Says he doesn't want to wait too long and give Frederick the time to plot revenge or something."

          Sighing, Clementine shook his head. "He's going to get himself killed—this is why I don't want to be involved."

          "He's got it all planned out and I tried to talk him out of it, but—"

          "Shh," Clementine then interjected, spotting Quincy looking in their direction. "We'll talk about it later."

          Elliot lifted his head; obviously spotting the professor, he nodded and got back to work. "Okay."

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♠ Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! ♠

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♥ How do you feel about the characters? ♥

⤠ What do you think will happen next? Will Clementine finally get Ian alone? ⤟

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